If you’ve visited our mothership lately, you may have noticed a bright new banner at the top of the home page. It’s there because we’re interested in you – and in discovering what you like to do online, so that we can develop our web site and online programs to better serve your interests and needs. We’ve designed a very brief – promise! – survey to help us learn more about your interests when it comes to technology and how it’s integrated into your lifestyle.

At just 11 questions, this very short survey should take less than 5 minutes to complete. Your answers will be invaluable as we continue to develop our online programs, in order to better serve you and all of our visitors.

To say thank you, we’re giving away an iPod Touch! By completing the survey, you’re entered to win – easy as that! (You can also check out the full rules for the drawing here.)

Thank you very much for your feedback – and for reading our blog!

Authored By Erin B Blatzer

Erin is the Director of Business Development at HMNS. In a past life, she was a public relations and online marketing dynamo at HMNS.

18 responses to “Got 5 minutes? Win an iPod Touch!”

It says that the Museum of Fine Arts Houston gets $1.2 billion in tax returns because art is what brings the tourists to the city. However, doesn’t the Houston museum of Natural Science bring in a lot of tourists, and do they get high tax returns as well?

HMNS does bring a lot of tourists to Houston – through world premiere exhibitions like Lucy’s Legacy and Dinosaur Mummy CSI and stellar permanent exhibits and venues like the Cockrell Butterfly Center. HMNS provided KTRK with all of the financial information they requested; the fact that they did not include our information in their series of stories shows that there is no story there.

And, from the wording of the story, it sounds like the $1.2 billion number refers to the MFA’s net worth – not the amount they received back as a tax return.

Also, I was wondering if there are any plans to renovate the permanent exhibit halls. I simply find them to be underwhelming. I applaud HMNS for bringing in great traveling exhibitions such as Lucy, Dead Sea Scrolls, Kremlin, Leonardo, Terracotta Warriors, except I never stop to view the permanent halls because nothing really interests me at all after all theses years.

Does HMNS make any traveling exhibitions that go to museums around the country?

Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, I was delayed a bit in getting this information. In answer to your question, our endowment information is considered confidential, so I won’t be able to share that information here.

As for your second question – we generally renovate at least one permanent exhibition a year – or create a new one, like the Smith Gem Vault. We’ve also recently renovated the entomology exhibits in the Cockrell Butterfly Center and the Wiess Energy Hall.

We do also create exhibits that travel – the Lucy’s Legacy exhibit you mentioned was created by HMNS and is currently on display at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle. We also created the Leonardo dinosaur exhibit – Dinosaur Mummy CSI – which is currently on display and will tour (though the original fossil will return to a museum in Malta, the town closest to where it was discovered – an exact replica will travel with the show).

Thanks for your interest – and your continued visits – I am so glad to hear that you enjoy our special exhibitions.

Museums often create exhibitions from loans of artifacts – simply because, in most cases, no one museum can possibly hold all of the material relevant to a given topic. For example, our GOLD exhibition included many mineral specimens from our own collection – but also included loans from museums and personal collections around the world, in order to give our visitors a complete view of all the most spectacular examples of gold in science, history, culture, etc.

We do have traveling exhibits based on our collections as well – an exhibit of Amazonian feather art collected by curator Adam Mekler (which has been traveling, but will be on display here next year), the Zuhl Collection of Petrified Wood, and the Duval Collection (massive geode crystals) all immediately come to mind, but I am sure there have been – and will be – others.

I think that there is no single or primary attraction that brings tourists to Houston. They come to see a variety of things, and some never come to the Museum District. Do any of the museums or other attractions make visitors give their origins to buy tickets? The statistics on which tourists go where may not be that good.
Tom Rice

The Museum showcases the world’s treasures, in order to fulfill our mission – through traveling exhibitions that we bring to Houston, through our world class permanent exhibits, and through exhibits we develop ourselves – like Lucy and Dinosaur Mummy. And – since most of our finest material is on display – like The Dragon, which is arguably the finest gold mineral crystal in existence – if we loaned this world renowned specimen out, or placed it on tour, it wouldn’t be here for our visitors to see. During my five-year tenure at the Houston Museum of Natural Science I still find new artifacts on display that fascinate me – and I am glad that they are here for Houstonians to see.

I applaud HMNS for its special exhibitions that it brings and its gem vault and entomology hall/butterfly center. However, I jdo not consider the permanent exhibits world class: HOA, paleo, africa, texas, egypt, are severely lacking in my honest opinion.

An great example of lending some of a museum’s finest work goes back to 2007 when the Museum of Fine Arts Houston hosted The Masterpieces of French Painting from The Metropolitan Museum of Art: 1800-1920. Did you get to see this? The exhibit has some of the most iconic works of art in the world with Monet, Seurat, Daumier, Manet…etc. Yet these masterpieces were loaned out to Houston and were not on view at the Metroplitan Museum for its own visitors.

I would really like this ipod touch because it would be so great because my birthday is coming up soon and i would love a new phone where as my mum said if only a miricale would happen and it would be if i get a free ipod touch please and thank you ever so much

Heyy well, like i said in another compition my family carnt afford one, i’ve always wanted some kind of music player that plays music buhtt unfortanityly my mum just has enough money to pay bills, my family isnt the richest and all ive ever wanted is an ipod it would be such an amazing thing if i won because i’ve told my mum ive been praying for one and she doesnt believe me that i will get one i really want to prove that Gods there Looking after me. thankyou all the best to everyone and God Bless xo

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